THE GREAT PIE BELT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5014, 28 July 1894, Page 2

THE GREAT PIE BELT.

I Mr Eudyard Kipling has been inter* viewed by a representative of the St James* Gazette, and this is what he said of America in general and New England in particular :— " Meanwhile, you yourself go back to New England after your holiday here?" asked the reporter. "Tee. It anits my purposes, for the time." "Apparently the climato suits you," ssdd our representative, glancing at Mr Kipling's healthy brown cheeks." " Oh, the climate is excellent for nine montha of the year. A lovely green country and soft gold bud> chine all the summer; and a perfect winter. Snow three feet deep, and such sleighing! i DID TOTT EVBB SLEIGH? 1 No; then you don't know one of the beet things in life. Then the still clearness of the cold is delightful. There ia hardly a stir of wind for days together, and with the thermometer twenty degrees below zero you can't catch cold if you try. I admit, when the wind does come it is pretty bad—a blizzard fit to blow the plates off the eide of an ironclad. The New England spring, too, is a surprise— froit, wind, and baking sun, in layers as it were, in three consecutive days. Still, on the whole, the olimate ia a good one for a foreigner. Whether it is just the sort to build up A TOUGH BACE is another question. It is too dry— the air is too oxygenated. It makes brain better than muscle, and nerves more than either. Our moist grey Englibh weather is the thing, after all, to keep the blood in the veins and the gastric juiceß in work. Now the Yankee does not seem to be able to sleep o' nightd, or laugh out loud, or assimilate his food in peace." "I thought that last was mainly due to the kind oE food he tried to aßsimilate." "No doubt that has a good deal to do with. it. I speak with knowledge, for I live on the borders of the Great Pie Belt ! " •• The Great Pie Belt?" echoed OUB APPAIIiED INTERVIEWEE. "Yes," replied Mr Kipling; "the Pie . Belt, which extends through the New England States and across Northern New York. Pie is a habit all over the Eastern States ; in the Belt it is a debauch. Have 1 you considered the physiological condition ■ of a people which eats pie for breakfast, > pie for dinner, and pie for supper, and ; takes ice-water and sweetstuffa between • whiles? L DYSPEPSIA IS ENDEMIC, ; you can't expect anything else." "In 1 fact, like other Englishmen, Mr Kipling, i you probably don'C regard America a3 an ideal country for comfort." "I may," ', said the Wise Young Man cautiously, "or t I may not admire the Americaus; but our i comfort they do not understand. Everything is too temporary for that. They are ' : in the railway-station- waiting-room atage " of civilisation. They are resting till the cars come up and take them on somewhere ' else; and it is hardly worth while yetfor • anyone to settle down and be solidly , : comfortable. Ib feels like one vast > encampment;, with frame-houses or steel » , and concrete barracks instead of tentg."